Dividing Andhra Pradesh government employees becomes contentious amid bifurcation process

Hyderabad: The process of bifurcating government departments between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh is progressing fast, but dividing employees is becoming contentious.

In fact, the process has not started due to confrontation between Telangana and Seemandhra staff over giving employees the option to work in their existing places.

The face-off may create severe anomalies in various departments after the state is bifurcated and the new government will have to struggle to run the administration after June 2. The state government has to release guidelines for division of the employees on May 8.

However, this looks uncertain. The government was forced to explore other options like dividing staff on a temporary basis for now and leaving the final division to respective state governments that will assume charge after June 2.

Official sources in General Administ-ration Department (GAD) in Secretariat said that the government is planning to come out with modalities for temporary division of staff on May 20 and complete the process by May 25.

The temporary arrangement being considered is to continue all employees irrespective of their region as far as state-cadre posts are concerned. The temporary division of staff is being considered only in Secretariat, Legislative Assembly and offices of heads of departments (HoDs) located in Hyderabad.

“If options are given to Seemandhra employees, all of them will choose to continue in and around Hyderabad. It will be unjust to those who fought for Telangana to in the hope of getting jobs,” said Mr G. Devi Prasad Rao, president, TNGOs Association.

Even Group-I officers from Telangana region are opposing giving options to Seemandhra employees.